First and foremost, libertarians want an end to the most destructive government program of all, war.

But libertarians also recognize that forcing people to purchase things they don’t want or need, like “public” education, health care programs or bankrupt retirement plans, forcibly prohibiting peaceful activities like taking medicine without permission from a doctor or accepting a wage below the arbitrarily imposed government minimum, or forcibly mandating people to associate with others against their will are all just as unpeaceful, i.e. warlike, as sending armed men in government costumes into a field to slaughter each other.

In all of these cases, force is initiated against the innocent, which is, by definition, war. Peace is not possible until all legalized aggression is abolished, and peace reigns over all human endeavors. To the obtuse cry, “There ought to be a law,” libertarians respond “Let there be peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.”

I’m trying to figure out what the word “liberal” (derived from the same Latin root as “liberty”) means when used in a political context. The best definition I can come up with is the belief that individuals should be allowed to make absolutely no decisions themselves regarding any aspect of their lives.

Instead, they will eat and drink only food the government allows them to, in packages labeled as the government directs, in portions the government deems healthy.

They will work only for compensation the government deems “fair,” neither lower nor higher than what is allowed, and they will keep only that portion of said compensation the government doesn’t require for distribution to someone else.

They will live in houses built to the government’s regulatory specifications, including the light bulbs they use, the safety devices they employ and the amount of water in their toilets.

They will raise and educate their children as the government directs, in schools they are forced to pay for whether they use them or not, studying only subjects the government approves and taught the way the government says they should be taught, regardless of how idiotic the government’s teaching methods are.

They will treat illnesses only as the government prescribes and only from caregivers the government “licenses,” including preventative treatments, whether they want them or not. They will pay for that treatment with an insurance program they are required to purchase.

They are mandated to associate with whomever the government directs them to, with legal penalties if they don’t.

While living this completely directed life, they are not to say or even think anything the government deems offensive.

If they fail to comply with any of the above, uniformed, armed men will come and drag them away and lock them in a cage.

If I understand correctly, there is another, related word to describe this destruction of personal choice over time. We call that “progress,” from which we get the word “progressive.”

Chapter Three

Who Will Build the Roads?

“I suppose I won’t see you driving on any of those government roads, then, will I?”

Eventually, every libertarian runs into this supposed conversation ender. Anti-libertarians believe that not only does this “zinger” refute libertarian arguments for private roads, but libertarian arguments about anything. “Oh, you want to get the government out of health care? I guess I won’t see you driving on any government roads.” It gets that ridiculous.

This sophism is pregnant with anti-libertarian nonsense. Most superficially, it is a cheap shot at the character of libertarians. It implies that they are hypocritical moochers who not only fail to live by their beliefs, but seek to be “free riders” on the government’s road system without paying into it. It also contains the more serious argument that a workable road system wouldn’t exist if the government didn’t build it.

Both arguments are so wrong that one feels slightly embarrassed for the people who make them. Not only are supporters of government roads the “free riders,” but opposing government road and infrastructure building was once a policy position that won election after election. Anti-libertarians are sadly ignorant of their own history.

First, let’s examine the hypocritical moocher argument. It rests upon the assumption that libertarians want to use the roads but not pay for them. That is not even close to what libertarians say. Libertarians not only wish to, but believe they are obligated to pay for any good or service that they choose to buy. Like all libertarian arguments, the underlying principle is non-aggression. Exchanges of property should only occur with the mutual, voluntary consent of all parties to the exchange.

Nothing built by the government is paid for voluntarily. Taxes are compelled by a threat of force.

Libertarians don’t argue that roads shouldn’t be paid for. They merely argue that individuals should have a choice about whether they buy roads and from whom. The choices to buy or not, from whom and at what price are the cornerstone of free markets. They are the only reason the market performs better than government. In a free market, consumers can say “no.”

Libertarians believe that they should be responsible to pay 100% of the cost of anything they buy under those conditions. It is actually anti-libertarians who at least partially want to be “free riders.” Yes, they agree to pay taxes, but why is it necessary to have government in the middle of the transaction? Why can’t anti-libertarians simply pay the road builders directly?

The answer is the same for roads as it is for all government programs. The government is not merely an organizer or planner. The market does far better at both. But the government can do something the market can’t. It can force people to buy things whether they want to or not.

That’s really what anti-libertarians are arguing for, although most probably don’t realize it. The government monopoly isn’t necessary to ensure that you pay for products you bought yourself. For those, the seller simply sends you a bill. The government is necessary to compel you to pay for things other people want but are unable or unwilling to pay for themselves.

In a free market, those who want a road must pay for it. When the government builds the roads, both those who want the road and those who don’t are forced to pay. The latter group isn’t necessarily against roads. They might want a road built somewhere else, or by someone else, or not at all. They may benefit from the road, but not enough to justify the cost, in their own judgment. Thus, they may choose not to buy a particular road that others want. The government takes that choice away.

Anti-libertarians maintain that if some people want a road built, then they should have the power to make others who do not pay for it anyway. Who are the real moochers?

The charge of hypocrisy is equally spurious. It is not hypocritical to try to get some use out of a product one was forced to buy. Despite their objection to being forced to buy the government’s road and being prohibited from building their own, libertarians nevertheless pay for the roadslike everyone else. Attempting to get some value out of them does not contradict their argument.

An analogy might be helpful. Suppose someone wants a BMW, but BMWs are illegal and everyone is forced to buy Toyotas. We wouldn’t accuse opponents of this policy of hypocrisy if they drove the Toyotas they were forced to buy. They would be perfectly justified in driving the Toyotas while at the same time objecting to the law.

The government monopoly on roads doesn’t just force us to buy Toyotas, but at BMW prices.

The analogy is actually an insult to Toyota, which makes a good, affordable product that foregoes luxury to meet demand at a certain price point.

In contrast, the government road system is an unmitigated disaster. Not only are government roads among the most dangerous places on earth; they are grossly deficient in quality. They are under constant repair, which takes years, sometimes decades, for any given stretch of road. One cannot drive ten miles in any direction in America without encountering a sea of orange pylons and barrels. Those few government roads not partially closed for repairs are typically inadequate to the volume of traffic. Americans literally spend years of their lives sitting in their cars in bumper to bumper traffic.

Monkeys could be trained to manage the road system better than the government.

This isn’t to imply that the people who work on the roads or even the bureaucrats who plan them are lazy or incompetent. It’s the system they work in that’s broken, not the people. The incentives are all wrong.

Political decisions are made for political reasons. While the civil engineer managing the road construction project may want to finish the road on time and under budget, there are contrary political forces seeking to prolong the project to keep people employed and exceed the budget for political motives. A sea of regulations and licensing requirements slow the work even further. Corruption abounds, with contracts given to the politically connected rather than the most qualified. Funding is a political football.

This is how a four-mile stretch of Route 275 in Tampa, FL can remain under construction for ten years, with no end in sight.

Does anyone really believe that road construction would take as long if a private owner were losing money every day the road was not operating at full capacity?

This often brings up another variant of anti-libertarian nonsense, that private owners would exploit us all and charge exorbitant prices for access to the roads. A related argument says that we would necessarily pay more for the roads if they were privately owned because, in addition to the costs already paid by the government, we would have to pay a premium for the profits private owners would seek to make.

If that’s true, then why not have the government provide everything? Surely, if private owners should be prohibited from profiting from roads, which are somewhat necessary, then they should be prohibited from profiting from selling food, shelter or clothing, which are absolutely necessary to human survival. Wouldn’t everything be less expensive if we didn’t have to pay for profits?

The question was already answered in 20th century Russia and China, where millions literally starved to death in an attempt to prevent “exploitation” by capitalists. To a large extent, the arguments against private roads are just another iteration of the arguments against free markets in general. The answers to these arguments rest upon the same principles as any arguments for free markets over socialism.

The profits earned by road capitalists are no different from the wages paid to their employees. They are compensation for capitalists’ labor, both present management of the productive structure and their labor in the past that produced the savings they used as capital to start the business.

Just as employees can demand no more in wages than employers are willing and able to pay for their services, capitalists can demand no more in profits than consumers are willing to pay for capitalists’ services. If a capitalist raises prices in an attempt to make unreasonable profits, his competitor will be happy to provide the product at a lower price. The competitor may make less profit on each unit, but he sells more units for every dollar he decreases his price. That’s just simple supply and demand economics, accepted by virtually everyone, libertarian or not.

Consumers bear the same costs of capital and management when the government builds roads. We just don’t call them “profits” and there is no competition to limit them. We pay a panel of bureaucrats a higher price to do the job the capitalist would do, plus pay for all of the waste and fraud that accompany government projects. Allowing capitalists to make profits is far cheaper.

Just as government workers aren’t inferior people, neither are capitalists superior nor more virtuous people. They simply operate in a system with different incentives. Capitalists in a free market please customers because customers have choices. They can buy from someone else. They can choose not to buy at all. Either choice means less profits, losses or bankruptcy for the capitalist. He can only survive and thrive when customers choose to buy his product.

Somehow, people have placed roads into a special category where these basic economic laws are supposedly suspended. But they’re not. The economics of road building is no different from the economics of food growing or toy making. Roads are just another product of human labor. A free market is the most efficient means for building, maintaining and distributing their benefits, just as it has proved to be for every other product.

Then, there is the convenience argument. Even if the roads would be cheaper if privately owned, wouldn’t it be terribly inconvenient to have to stop and pay a toll every time I left the property of one owner and drove onto the property of another? Wouldn’t there be toll booths every few blocks?

These concerns betray incredibly limited thinking. Even the government has somewhat overcome the inconvenience of stopping traffic at toll booths with wireless toll sensors overhead. This solution assumes that the only way to pay for roads is for consumers to pay a separate fee for each use.

Proponents of government roads assume that everyone benefits equally from them. While one could argue that most people benefit at least indirectly from government roads, it is obvious that everyone does not benefit equally.

The consumers who shop on a road where a group of retailers reside benefit from the road, but the retailers benefit much more. The consumers could survive without shopping there, but the retailers could not survive without the road. Thus, the answer to the perennial question, “Without government, who will build the roads?” For this road, the answer is simple: the retailers. Likewise for roads leading to the road they are located on.

Where would the retailers get the additional money needed to build and maintain roads? They’d simply pass along the costs in the prices of their products. This would not be an additional cost for consumers. Offsetting the slightly higher price of the retailers’ products would be the enormous savings in taxes not paid for the inefficient government road system.

Retailers already do this to an extent, as libertarian author Larken Rose humorously notes:

“On the supermarket’s private property are roads and parking lots (really wide roads). Where did they come from? Why didn’t they send me a bill for them? Because it was part of their premeditated loss in the deal to sell me sushi, pepperoni, and candy corns.”[1]

What about residential roads? That’s even easier. Voluntary contracts called “Homeowners’ Associations” already maintain landscaping and other “infrastructure” within residential communities. There is no reason roads could not be added to the list. Would that raise homeowners’ association fees? Yes, but savings in taxes would be greater than the increase in fees.

What about interstate highways and all of the other roads and bridges built by the government? The same principle applies. There are numerous entities who would be willing to build and maintain roads if the government didn’t do so. They include manufacturers who need roads to get their products to market, trucking companies who transport them there, retailers who sell them, and many other interested parties.

All of these benefit infinitely more from roads than the average commuter. Under a government road system, taxpayers are forced to underwrite this capital expense while capitalists keep all of the profits. As previously stated, capitalists aren’t more virtuous people. They respond to incentives like everyone else. The government road system allows them to let other people pay their expenses. It not only gives them an incentive to be moochers, it offers them no alternative.

Anti-libertarians often argue that libertarian ideas sound great in theory, but would never work in the real world. Certainly, private roads are a prime example, right?

Wrong. Not only would private roads work better than government roads, they have and still do.

Somewhere down George Orwell’s famous memory hole has fallen almost a century of American history where government roads were vehemently opposed. Before Social Security, healthcare or unemployment were political issues, road building was a central one.

During the Washington administration, Alexander Hamilton championed government roads as part of the Federalist Party domestic policy platform of high, protectionist tariffs, a central bank and “internal improvements,” which meant government funded roads and canals. Taxpayers would foot the bill for roads and connected private corporations would build them and keep the profits.

On the other side of the debate were Jefferson and his Democratic-Republicans. They referred to themselves as “Republicans,” but were not the same as the modern Republican Party. They eventually evolved into the modern Democratic Party, although their platform in 1800 was far different from their platform today. During the 19th century, the Democratic-Republicans were the party of free markets and limited government.

Jefferson’s “Republicans” opposed the central bank, supported tariffs sufficient to fund government but not to protect domestic manufacturers, and opposed government subsidized roads and canals.

The Republicans were at a disadvantage because they did not become a formal party until after the Federalists were firmly established. This gave Hamilton and the Federalists the opportunity to make the same arguments we hear today about why the government has to build the roads. They even got to launch a few projects. They were all disasters.

All of that changed with Jefferson’s electoral victory in 1800. So dramatic was the change in policy that Jefferson himself often referred to it as a Second American Revolution. Distraught with Jefferson’s election, the heavily Federalist New England states actually held conventions contemplating secession from the Union. Among their dire predictions was that America would languish without an adequate road system because the Jeffersonians refused to allow the government to fund them.

They couldn’t have been more wrong, as Loyola University economics professor and author Thomas Dilorenzo points out.

“But the fact is, most roads and canals were privately financed in the nineteenth century. Moreover, in virtually every instance in which state, local, or federal government got involved in building roads and canals, the result was a financial debacle in which little or nothing was actually built and huge sums of taxpayer dollars were squandered or simply stolen.”[2]

Dilorenzo goes on to describe the spectacularly successful, privately-funded “turnpike” industry that built virtually all of the roads in early America. He attributes the success to the same incentives that libertarians argue would motivate private investment in roads today.

“Local merchants had strong incentives to invest in private turnpikes because they would bring more commerce to their towns. Landowners would see their property values rise, and cities would more generally prosper as improved transportation extended the division of labor and the economic benefits derived from it.”[3]

This is not an arcane legend that libertarians invented. It’s been well documented by “mainstream” historians for hundreds of years.

“In France, contributions in kind take place on very few roads; in America upon almost all the thoroughfares: in the former country, the roads are free to all travellers; in the latter turnpikes abound.”[4]

Seymour Dunbar documented the same phenomenon in his four-volume 1915 treatise A History of Travel in America:

“Out of these new qualities of public thought came a suggestion that the task of turnpike building be turned over to private companies created for the purpose. The idea was adopted through all the country. Under its general operation many thousands of miles of improved roads were constructed, and within a few years it was possible to travel by stage-coach from the Atlantic Coast to the border of Indiana in about two weeks, at a cost of only forty-five or fifty dollars exclusive of board and lodging.”[5]

The success of private roads and the waste, fraud and incompetence inherent in government-funded road projects made resistance to government road building a mainstream political position in 19th century America. Two major political parties met their demise largely for supporting government funded roads and other infrastructure.

So resounding was the Federalists’ defeat in 1800 that they ceased to exist as a party not long afterwards. Government roads then found new champions in a successor party. Led by Henry Clay, the Whig Party repackaged Federalist ideas into what Clay called “The American System.” Its pillars were a central bank, high protectionist tariffs and internal improvements.

Clay and the Whigs promoted their American System for decades, losing election after election. So unpopular was the idea of letting the federal government build roads that as late as 1857, Democratic President James Buchanan felt the need to justify in his inaugural address what little road building he believed the government should undertake. Emphasizing that the federal government’s powers should be strictly limited to the powers delegated in the U.S. Constitution, Buchanan went on to say.

“Whilst deeply convinced of these truths, I yet consider it clear that under the war-making power Congress may appropriate money toward the construction of a military road when this is absolutely necessary for the defense of any State or Territory of the Union against foreign invasion. Under the Constitution Congress has power ‘to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to call forth the militia to ‘repel invasions.’ Thus endowed, in an ample manner, with the war-making power, the corresponding duty is required that ‘the United States shall protect each of them [the States] against invasion.’ Now, how is it possible to afford this protection to California and our Pacific possessions except by means of a military road through the Territories of the United States, over which men and munitions of war may be speedily transported from the Atlantic States to meet and to repel the invades?”[6]

Obviously, government roads were still very unpopular. Otherwise, Buchanan wouldn’t have felt the need to make such a lengthy argument for the few he advocated.

Like the Federalists before them, the Whigs eventually disintegrated after decades of failing to establish their American System. Private roads were firmly established as an American institution with little reason to believe that would ever change.

So how did government take over road building?

Like the Federalists, the surviving Whigs and their political heirs formed a new party. Calling themselves “Republicans” the new party was an alliance between former Whigs and abolitionists. Capitalizing upon the dominant issue of the day, the new Republican Party won a sweeping victory in 1860.

Most Americans remember the Lincoln presidency for the American Civil War, his Emancipation Proclamation and the eventual abolition of slavery in the United States. These huge issues tend to obscure what has now become a little known fact. Lincoln was a lifelong Whig who had supported its principles for decades. As far back as 1831, Lincoln had quipped during a stump speech,

“My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the same.”[7]

These ideas, rejected by voters since 1800, had little hope of success before Lincoln’s victory. But by 1861, the issues of slavery and the war were so dominant that Lincoln and the Republicans had little trouble in finally establishing the American System. Opposition to government roads was the proverbial baby that went out with the bathwater of slavery.

Lincoln’s domestic policy agenda was not lost on the Confederate States. While their primary and most immediate reason for seceding was fear that the Republican policy of prohibiting slavery in new states and territories would eventually threaten the instituiton in their own, they also opposed the crony capitalism of the American System. Georgia’s Declaration of the Causes of Secession talks at length about it, arguing that the abolitionist movement had provided its proponents a new opportunity:

“…but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success.”[8]

Sadly, the Confederacy did not have to change the U.S. Constitution significantly regarding slavery because the Constitution supported the institution at the time. But the new Confederate Constitution did make a significant change to the Commerce Clause:

“To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.”[9] [emphasis added]

Private roads were not immediately abolished by the government the day after Lee surrendered to Grant. However, the Republican Party’s domination of American politics in the post-war period made a government takeover of the road building industry inevitable. Dunbar recognized the significance of the Civil War on road policy:

“Many of the toll road franchises have only lapsed in recent years, and a few are still effective. Maryland, and perhaps other states, yet possess toll-gates. Not until after the Civil War did the various commonwealths generally adopt a policy under which roadways were considered public works to be created and maintained by the people themselves and used without toll fees.”[10] [emphasis added]

Tragically, their defense of slavery has sullied many of the good, libertarian ideas the southern states espoused, including opposition to government subsidization of roads, canals and railroads. Some actually accuse libertarians of racism or even of condoning slavery because their arguments sound like some of those made by the Confederate states. If you don’t think the government should build roads, you must support slavery.

Yes, it gets that ridiculous, too.

A century and a half later, the seceding states have been vindicated on at least one issue. As wrong as they were on slavery, they were absolutely right about government roads. The government hasn’t improved at building them since those “financial debacles” Dilorenzo described. We’ve just become accustomed to its incompetence.

Long tradition has desensitized us to the farcical prospect of repairs on short stretches of road taking years to complete, road construction projects with no workers present for days or weeks at a time, traffic jams, potholes, and a predatory police force waiting to spring out from cover to mete out disproportionate financial punishment for the slightest infraction.

Even conservatives accuse libertarians of taking free markets to an extreme by suggesting private roads. That’s not surprising, because government roads has traditionally been a conservative position, since the early days of the republic when the Federalist Party were the conservatives and Jefferson’s Republicans were the liberals.

If they’re right about libertarians being free market extremists, then they’d be surprised to find out where this extremism has been implemented with spectacular success: in so-called “Communist China.”

After decades languishing under true communism, China has been making market reforms to its economy since the 1980’s. They still call themselves communist and the Communist Party still has absolute control of the political process, but their economy is in many ways more capitalist than the USA’s.

One way is the extensive highway system they’ve built in a remarkably short period of time. China’s highways are built and maintained mostly by private companies and financed in the private capital markets. It’s not a completely free market. There is still plenty of government meddling and attempts at planning. However, the most important element of free markets is present. The costs for the roads are paid by the people who use them. At least for roads, costs are not “socialized” in the socialist state.

So impressed was legendary investor Jim Rogers by China’s highway system that he devoted a chapter to it in his 2007 book, A Bull in China. Rogers had ridden his motorcycle across China in 1988 and felt lucky to survive the dearth of roads. Less than two decades later, the transformation dazzled him:

“Under socialism, the slogan of China’s forced industrialization was ‘China Reconstructs.’ Today, the operative phrase is more like ‘Highways to Heaven.’ With 28,210 miles of highways at the end of 2006, China boasted the world’s second-longest set of freeways, roughly equal to those of Canada, Germany and France combined. In the last four years, about 3,000 miles of expressways were added each year on average. And there are plans afoot to construct and pave up to triple the current number.”[11]

Rogers goes on to recommend several Chinese expressway companies as investment opportunities.

Adrian Moore, Ph.D., Vice President of Policy at the libertarian think tank Reason Foundation, has also taken notice. In a Reason TV You Tube video, Moore observes,

“Here we have this very capitalist culture and country and we have this incredibly socialist transportation system, where the idea of having the private sector build and run a road is just crazy talk. And over in China, where it’s an avowedly communist system, the idea of having the private sector build and run a road is like ‘Well, yeah, how else are we going to build all the roads?”[12]

The libertarian argument for private roads is used as a bludgeon to stifle debate on reductions in government anywhere. Promoting even a modest reduction in income tax rates is enough for many anti-libertarians to “play the road card,” hoping others will perceive the libertarian as crazy.

It’s classic ad hominem. When you can’t refute the argument, attack the person making it. That’s why this tactic is employed so often.

Guess what? The road card isn’t worth a deuce. Neither history, economics nor common sense support it. If early Americans and 21st century communists can build private roads, we can, too.

[4] De Tocqueville, Alexis Democracy in America Volumes I and II (Kindle Edition) pg. 165/location 5661. It should be noted that Tocqueville’s characterization of roads being “free” in France is misleading. The roads in France weren’t free, they were paid for in taxes. Tocqueville and his contemporaries would have understood this implicitly. Today, that is not always the case.

[5] Dunbar, Seymour A History of Travel in America The Bobbs-Merrill Company Indianapolis, IN 1915 Volume I pgs. 321-322

[6]United States Presidents Inaugural Speeches A Public Domain Book (Kindle) location 1969-1980

TAMPA, September 10, 2013 – Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem said earlier today that his government would accept the proposal to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction by the international community, according to the Associated Press. The proposal was made by the Russian government in an attempt to avoid U.S. airstrikes in reprisal for alleged chemical weapons attacks by its Syrian counterpart against rebels and civilians on Aug. 21.

The Syrian government has consistently denied launching the attacks.

President Obama has now reportedly changed the goal of his meetings today with Congressmen from persuading them to approve his military strikes to participating in the diplomatic solution. This begs an obvious question.

Why was it Russia that proposed a diplomatic solution, while the Nobel Peace Prize-winning U.S. president would consider nothing but war?

Indeed, Russian president Vladimir Putin has consistently been a calm voice of restraint and caution during the entire crisis, while Obama has sounded more like Khrushchev than Kennedy.

Syria is a longtime Russian ally and the home to Russia’s only military base outside its borders. The U.S. threats of military action against Syria is only the latest in a long train of provocative actions by the U.S. government towards its former Cold War adversary. As Pat Buchanan wrote in the American Conservative,

“George W. Bush sought to put an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Neither country had requested it. We said it was aimed at Iran. When my late friend, columnist Tony Blankley, visited Russia in the Bush II era, he was astounded at the hostility he encountered from Russians who felt we had responded to their offer of friendship at the end of the Cold War by taking advantage of them.”

The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, chiefly for economic reasons. That’s not the same as surrendering to an adversary in a hot war. Yet, the U.S. government has treated Russia more like Germany after the Treaty of Versailles than the major First World power that they remain.

Imagine how the U.S. government would react if Russia were talking about bombing Israel in response to some alleged misdeed?

Yet, Putin has avoided bellicosity in the face of the Obama administration’s refusal to consider anything but military action, asking only that the administration at least wait for all of the evidence to be presented and examined.

Yesterday, it was Putin who proposed a diplomatic solution to the crisis while Obama maintained his full court press for war. This isn’t the first time that Americans have been confronted with bizarre role reversals between their government and Russia’s. At a G20 conference in 2009, while the Obama administration was promoting its housing bailout bill, Putin lectured the administration about the evils of socialism.

“Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence is another possible mistake…In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated,” said Putin.

For the past four and a half years, the Obama administration has pursued the very interventionist economic policies it had so vehemently criticized the Bush administration for, while the Russian government advised to let the market do more of the work.

During the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, the Obama administration has demonstrated the same eagerness for war, the same rush to judgment and the same disregard for the opinions of the international community and its own citizens that it criticized the Bush administration for in the lead-up to Iraq. It has managed to make the Russians look like the good guys.

TAMPA, August 19, 2013 – At least 64 more people died in Egypt Friday as fighting erupted between Muslim Brotherhood-led supporters of ousted president Mohmmad Morsi and armed civilians who oppose them. Police officers were among those killed, some possibly fighting out of uniform with vigilante forces.

The Brotherhood has called for daily protests “until the coup ends,” meaning that the democratically-elected Morsi is returned to power. With chances of that close to zero, there is no clear pathway to an end to the carnage.

Egypt is in flames. It is a perfect metaphor for U.S. foreign policy.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he was canceling joint military training exercises with the Egyptian military. “Our traditional cooperation cannot continue as usual when civilians are being killed in the streets and rights are being rolled back,” the president said.

The civilians are being killed with weapons purchased with U.S. foreign aid to Egypt.

Just two years ago, the Obama administration materially supported the “pro-democracy” revolution against Hosni Mubarak, but has refused to condemn the Egyptian military’s deposing of Morsi.

If the administration were to recognize that as a coup, it would be legally required to cut off military aid.

Meanwhile, the administration is supporting a rebellion against President Assad of Syria. That has strained relations with Russia, a longtime ally of Syria and supporter of the multi-generational Assad regime. Russian president Vladimir Putin has publicly questioned why the United States is supporting rebel forces in Syria that include Al Qaeda after fighting extended wars against Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The tension may have influenced Putin’s decision to grant asylum to fugitive Edward Snowden. In response to that, Obama cancelled a scheduled meeting with Putin.

The failures are not confined to the Obama administration.

The Bush administration reacted to 9/11 the way FDR reacted to Pearl Harbor. It attempted to wage conventional war against an unconventional enemy.

“Mission accomplished,” declared President Bush in May, 2003, after U.S. forces had marched into the Iraqi capital, the traditional measure of victory in a conventional war.

The problem was that Saddam Hussein’s forces weren’t the real enemy. Eight years later, the U.S. left Iraq a nation in chaos, its infrastructure razed, two million refugees displaced, an ancient Christian community destroyed, and a government with strong ties to Iran.

“No one in his right mind speaks of a U.S. victory in Iraq these days,” wrote former Congressman Ron Paul.

Paul also noted that the Taliban has recently opened an office on Doha, Qatar, where it will negotiate with the U.S. on ending the war in Afghanistan. Few doubt that the Taliban will be a major influence in Afghanistan, if they don’t eventually return to power altogether, after the U.S. withdraws.

The entire, twelve-year U.S. adventure in the Middle East has been an unmitigated disaster, using any of the measures of success offered by its proponents.

It did not neutralize weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They didn’t exist.

It did not permanently depose the Taliban.

It did not eliminate or even reduce al Qaeda, which filled every vacuum created by U.S. arms.

It has not made the Middle East more stable.

It certainly has not made Americans freer. The Patriot Act, the TSA, NSA collection of phone and e-mail data, indefinite detention without due process and the presidential kill list have all accompanied the war on terror. While military intervention did not cause these domestic policies, it has done nothing to reduce the perceived need for them.

The U.S. has learned nothing from the Cold War. The two significant military interventions during that period were its only failures. The U.S. left Viet Nam in defeat. The Vietnamese largely abandoned communism on their own in the decades that followed.

The U.S. prevented North Korea from taking over South Korea, but still finds itself entangled in the six decade standoff that followed it. North Korea is one of the few truly communists countries left in the world, largely because an outside threat unites people behind the government.

It’s time to give serious consideration to a noninterventionist foreign policy. The results of trying to police the world and export democracy have been exactly the opposite of what was intended. It’s a lot like when the government intervenes into the economy. When it puts price controls on food to help the poor, it results in food shortages and the poor starve.

It is often said that if the United States did not have its massive military presence around the world, other powers like China would fill the void. Let them.

The idea that there is something to fear from potential rivals “controlling resources” is based upon economics as spurious as those employed by the price controllers. Natural resources are worth nothing if not sold to all potential buyers. Oil is not sold from government to government. It is sold to major exchanges and from there to the highest bidder.

While the United States is bankrupting itself blowing up bridges and then rebuilding them in Middle East backwaters, China is investing in resources in Africa and elsewhere. They do not appear worried about their security despite the absence of military bases outside their borders.

The interventionists would do well to read the inauguration speeches of the first 22 U.S. presidents. Regardless of their differences on domestic policy, their comments on foreign policy play like a broken record.

Nonintervention worked. It’s no coincidence that the United States rose from one of the poorest economies in the world to the mightiest economy in human history while this was its foreign policy. Being the world’s policeman has played a large part in reversing that trend.

TAMPA, August 2, 2013 – The U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued a worldwide “travel alert” on Friday to warn U.S. citizens of “the continued potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, and possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” DOS also announced plans to temporarily close its embassies in 14 countries in the Middle East and Africa.

While the move is presumably the result of intelligence gathering, the government has not provided any details as to what prompted the precautions. Perhaps it was a tip from its network of informers. It could be information gleaned from its myriad surveillance programs.

What we do know is that the government’s reaction to the intelligence shows just how little it can really do to protect Americans against a terrorist attack. The government’s only answer is to pull its employees out of 14 countries and tell everyone else to “take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures to protect themselves when traveling.”

Protect yourselves. That’s what Americans have done during every terrorist attack, after government efforts to protect them failed.

TAMPA, July 27, 2013 – Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill that would have defunded the NSA’s blanket collection of metadata and limited the government’s collection of records to those “relevant to a national security investigation.”

It terrified New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who lashed out at those who supported the bill and libertarianism in general.

“As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now and making big headlines, I think, is a very dangerous thought,” Christie said.

Yes, it is dangerous, but to what? It is dangerous to the bloated national security state, which tramples the liberty and dignity of every American under the pretense of protecting them from what Charles Kenny recently called the “vastly exaggerated” threat of terrorism.

Chris Christie shamelessly invoked the image of “widows and orphans” of 9/11 in an attempt to discredit any resistance to the federal government’s complete disregard for the Bill of Rights. He then echoed former NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani in claiming some imagined authority on the matter because he is the governor of the state “that lost the second-most people on 9/11.”

Newsflash to Governor Christie: You have no more moral authority on this subject than the U.S. Congress had legislative authority to pass the Patriot Act.

Christie doesn’t understand that the power that legislators may exercise is limited to what was delegated to them in the Constitution. He seems to believe that power changes depending upon how he “feels.”

“I think what we as a country have to decide is: Do we have amnesia? Because I don’t,” he said. “And I remember what we felt like on Sept. 12, 2001.”

Ignoring the cheap tactic of trying to paint libertarians as “unfeeling” or not having sympathy for the victims of 9/11, there is a simple answer to Mr. Christie’s question.

“We as a country” decide questions like this through Article V of the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment forbids the federal government from running programs like the NSA’s. Only an amendment that revises or repeals it can change that.

Until then, the federal government does not have the power to do what it is currently doing, regardless of any terrorist attacks or how Mr. Christie feels about them.

Amash’s amendment should be unnecessary, but it is preferable at the moment to the remedy offered in the Declaration of Independence for a government that exercises power not given to it by the people.

If history provides any guidance, the people will never give this power to the federal government. Let’s not forget that none of the Soviet-style security measures establishd since 9/11 have prevented a single terrorist attack, other than those the government created itself. Flight 93 on 9/11, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were all foiled by private citizens, the latter two after the perpetrator walked right past the government’s garish security apparatus.

The truth is that no security measures will ever be able to make Americans 100% safe from harm. There is absolutely nothing the U.S. government could do right now to prevent Russia or China from launching a nuclear attack on the United States. What makes one unlikely is the ability for the United States to retaliate and the lack of any good reason for either country to do so. The United States doesn’t routinely commit acts of war against Russia or China.

Perhaps that strategy might also be effective in preventing terrorism.

Regardless, the government can’t stop the next terrorist attack any more than it has stopped any previously. What it can do is continue to erode American liberty. This country is already unrecognizable as the same one that ratified the Bill of Rights. The Chris Christies and Michelle Bachmanns (she’s “one of them”) of this world are too busy cowering in fear to be concerned with “esoteric” subjects like the liberty and dignity of the individual.

Their opinions are not important. The people will decide whether a false sense of security is worth their liberty or not.

The first shot in this war has been fired. Amash lost the opening battle, but so did the colonists at Bunker Hill.

The real question that the American people will have to answer is this:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

TAMPA, May 16, 2013 ― The IRS targeting conservative groups for audits and enforcement actions is the latest scandal for a federal government that is so out of control that even the lapdog media are starting to sound libertarian while covering it. But targeting dissenters is nothing new and certainly not an innovation by the Obama administration. It is old as the federal government itself.

One does not have to go back as far as the Alien and Sedition Acts or Abraham Lincoln’s imprisonment of northern journalists who opposed the Civil War. One doesn’t even have to go outside the IRS. Just nine years ago, they were doing the exact same thing under Bush, going so far as to investigate a church because of an anti-war sermon which the agency said it “considered … to have been illegal.”

Ironically, for all of their talk about “small government” and “balanced budgets,” the tea party and patriot groups most recently victimized by the IRS are for the most part rabid supporters of American militarism. So, whether you’re pro-war or anti-war, you’re a candidate for predation, so long as you oppose any aspect of the federal monster.

Conservatives are obviously making this about Obama and Obama is doing his best to deflect blame, pointing out that the activity occurred while a Bush appointee was still IRS Commissioner. Sadly, most of the American public will likely jump on one bandwagon or the other and miss what is really important here.

This is the inevitable outcome of giving any government the kind of power that the federal government has, particularly the powers granted to the IRS. You cannot enforce an income tax without inviting the government into virtually every aspect of your life. Once there, it is going to defend itself against any attack, whether related to your tax liability or not.

Let’s not forget that one of the pillars of conservative attacks on Obamacare was the thousands of new IRS agents that would be necessary to enforce its individual mandate. Tea Party and Patriot groups were largely formed around opposition to this law.

That’s what pro-war conservatives in 2012 had in common with anti-war liberals in 2004. They opposed the growth of government: the addition of new government jobs and the increase in funding. Whether for a war or a healthcare program is really immaterial. The beast just wants to grow and when it encounters opposition it defends itself like any other organism.

If the American public wants to stop the federal government from laying waste to the entire country the way it did the City of Detroit, it has to stop taking the left/right, liberal/conservative bait. There are two sides to this struggle, but they are not liberal and conservative.

They are those who benefit from the parasitical federal government and those who are victimized by it. Both groups are populated by liberals and conservatives. Let’s not forget that the majority of the military establishment is just a right wing welfare program, for individuals and large corporations alike. And it’s not like there are no liberals among that 5% of the population that pays most of the taxes.

The federal government can’t be fixed by throwing the current bums out and replacing them with new ones. It is not a job for a monkey wrench or a surgeon’s scalpel. It is a job for a motivated public armed with sledgehammers.

TAMPA, April 15, 2013 – Being a libertarian, I agree that all taxation is theft. I hope that someday the human race “progresses” to the point where coercion, even to purchase “protection” from the official mafia, is held in contempt. But of all of the possible ways to rob us, the income tax is by far the most insidious. Consider some of its absurd stepchildren.

There is some finite cost to defending the borders, running a court system, and administering “justice.” For those who believe that government should do more (like conservatives and liberals), there is likewise a finite cost for building roads, running healthcare programs and taking care of the poor. That cost doesn’t change significantly overnight or even from year to year.

But the income tax doesn’t reflect this. If productivity and therefore incomes double due to some new technology, the amount of money owed to the government doubles, even though there are less poor people, more private sector “infrastructure” projects and less crime (crime goes up during recessions, down during booms). The more productive Americans are, the bigger and more oppressive a government they get.

Talk about a bad incentive.

It also discourages productivity in general and encourages wasteful consumption. Anyone who has had any business success knows that at a certain point, additional income costs you money. You would rather stop producing more than allow the additional income to put you at the low end of a higher tax bracket. So you produce less to keep more.

The flipside of that is frivolous consumption. If you’re showing too much profit near the end of the fiscal year, you look for things to buy that you don’t really need so that you can write them off as business expenses. You’d rather purchase something that you’ll get some use out of rather than give that money to the government. If not for the income tax, you might have reinvested that money in producing even more goods or services and making society richer.

This is in contrast to a consumption tax, which although still a theft, at least provides relatively less perverse incentives. To the extent that it does influence behavior, a consumption tax encourages you to forego unnecessary consumption and, by omission, to produce more, as it does not tax productivity.

Then, there is the strange way in which the tax applies to government employees. In order to ensure “fairness” in the system, government employees must pay income taxes. But 100% of the salaries and benefits of military personnel, regulators and other government workers come from taxes. So, Americans have to pay taxes to support their salaries and benefits and then pay for additional government employees to collect back some of the money back. It is worth asking why government employees are not just paid less, tax free. But that could lead to other problems.

The current rhetoric about “closing loopholes” highlights the worst absurdity resulting from an income tax and the most hostile to liberty. It is the assumption that all wealth produced by individuals actually belongs to the government, which allows those who produced it to keep whatever portion the government doesn’t need. If the whole reason for establishing government is to “surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest,” then it follows that the portion surrendered would be a relatively small percentage. Otherwise, it would make sense to take one’s chances without government at all.

These are only a few of the perverse incentives and absurd outcomes that accompany an income tax. They don’t result from government bureaucrats merely failing to execute an otherwise sound policy effectively. They result from the violation of a fundamental law of nature: the right of every individual to keep the fruits of his labor and dispose of them as he sees fit in pursuit of his own happiness.

Right now, squirrels are more secure in this right than human beings are.

It’s not a coincidence that the positive trends in upward mobility, distribution of wealth, growth of the middle class and quality of life for the poor have all slowed and eventually reversed since the income tax was established.

Yet, a majority of Americans not only comply with the tax but fiercely defend it upon the grounds that civilization would collapse without it, despite the fact that the United States has still only had an income tax for 42% of its existence. Often, income tax apologists cite roads and other government boondoggles that aren’t even underwritten by the income tax as proof of its necessity.

TAMPA, April 6, 2013 ― If my colleague Chris Ladd had written the usual, libertarians-are-racists screed, it would be unworthy of a response. But he didn’t. In fact, his piece “How Libertarianism failed African Americans” is a thoughtful and philosophically consistent argument that clearly disclaims any accusation that libertarianism is inherently racist.

But it’s still nonsense. That it is eloquently stated makes it all the more harmful.

Ladd’s premise is that racism and Jim Crow presented libertarianism with a dilemma. Libertarians oppose all government interference with freedom of association and free markets, but blacks were being “oppressed” by the voluntary choices of white people not to serve them. Therefore, libertarians had to choose between staying true to their principles or supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which meant granting the federal government the power to override private decisions.

Most libertarians don’t oppose most sections of the Act, which prohibit governments from discriminating. They oppose those sections which allow the federal government to prohibit private decisions based upon race. Ladd recognizes this distinction, claiming “African Americans repression rose not only from government, but from the culture and personal choices of their white neighbors.”

First, Ladd’s history is completely wrong. Like many conservatives and liberals, Ladd sees libertarianism as a subset of conservatism, an “extreme” version of the conservative philosophy which supposedly advocates a market economy. For him, libertarianism traces back only as far as Barry Goldwater and became an independent movement in the early 1970’s when anti-war conservatives formed the Libertarian Party.

Libertarianism does not follow at all from conservatism. It is the philosophical child of classical liberalism, which struck an uneasy alliance with conservatism during a few, short periods in the 20th century, after the liberal movement completely abandoned individual liberty. The so-called “Old Right” should really be called the “Middle Right,” because conservatism has meant bigger, more interventionist government for most of American (and world) history.